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Formics
Formics, usually referred to by the pejorative term "buggers," are a fictional insectoid alien species from the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels by Orson Scott Card. The term "Formic" is derived from formica, the Latin word for ant. Biology The Formic species consists of hive-minded colonies that are philotically directed by queens. As evidenced in Mazer Rackham's victory in the Second Invasion, if a queen dies, all the drones under her control lose their intelligence and ability to function immediately. However, in Speaker for the Dead, The Hive Queen has a memory that associates with the word rogue, most likely meaning that 'drones' have some degree of sentience and can escape the influence of a queen. Formic queens communicate instantaneously via philotic connections and can even do so with other species, although this is more difficult. Formics live in vast underground colonies that are pitch black and confusing for humans to navigate, leading to the assumption that Formics make use of sensory apparatus different from that of humans (i.e. other than the range of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to humans). There are other conflicting theories, however; in the first novel they were told to have artificial lighting. In Xenocide, Ender claims they view things via heat signature. Interaction with humans Humanity's first contact with the Formics resulted in bloodshed, leading humans to conclude that the Formics were hostile. However, the Formics had not intended any hostility. As a species with a hive mind, they believed that an individual is expendable. Thus, when they killed individual humans upon first contact, the Formics "gave it no more thought than a human would give clipping his toenails". It was meant not to be a hostile act, but rather serve as an acknowledgement of human beings as another hive minded species. Once the Formics realized that humans were sentient individuals, unlike themselves, they immediately halted their attacks. Unfortunately, without any means of communication between the two species, humanity did not realize this fact. Fearing another Formic invasion, it made the decision to assault the Formics' homeworld and wipe out the alien threat once and for all. The Formics made two assaults on humanity: One, the First Invasion, left the Earth itself ravaged. Both Human and Formic ships were slow and clunky during the war. Eventually, humanity was able to repulse the Formics, but at heavy cost. The Second Invasion was an attempt by the Formics to colonize the Earth. The human ships were still, for the most part, slow, but the Formics had made incredible technological advancements. They defeated most of the International Fleet in the Oort cloud (because, according to Mazer Rackham, the main commanders of the Fleet were too hesitant to lose ships). As the Formics approached the Earth, a small reserve force led by Mazer Rackham made a suicidal charge against their fleet. Mazer, who had carefully analyzed videos of the previous battles, guessed which Formic ship was commanding the rest and destroyed it. Immediately, the rest of the Formics in the fleet became senseless and stopped moving; they were still alive, but the queen was dead and they were incapable of thinking or acting without the queen. Afterward, the Formics realized that humanity was sentient, and ended their assault on humanity. However, a human fleet, outfitted with never before seen weapons, had been sent out only a short while after the war ended, and was on a 70-year journey to the Formic homeworld, to destroy the world and end the Formic species. In the novel Ender's Game, Ender Wiggin unknowingly commits xenocide by commanding the fleet (via the Battle Game) to destroy the Formic homeworld, wiping out the Formic species except for a single cocoon containing a new queen. The initial human reaction to the destruction of the Formics was jubilation. However, upon finding out the truth about what he had done, Ender was sick with guilt. Eventually, he rescues the last Formic cocoon and, with knowledge gained by communicating telepathically with the queen inside it, writes the book The Hive Queen. Written under the pseudonym The Speaker for the Dead, this book paints a tragic picture of the destruction of the Formics, leading to the ironic vilification of "Ender the Xenocide" and the spawning of a new religion based on honest eulogy. Foreseeing their unintentional destruction at Ender's hands, the Formics had placed their last cocoon on a colony world in a landscape terraformed to match one that Ender would recognize from the Fantasy Game that he played in Battle School. After many years, Ender finally finds a habitable place for the cocoon to hatch. This place is on Lusitania, a Brazilian Catholic colony world, already inhabited by humans and another intelligent alien species, the Pequeninos. References * Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card * Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card * Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card * Xenocide by Orson Scott Card * Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card * First Meetings by Orson Scott Card Category:Ender's Game characters Category:Fictional extraterrestrial species Category:Fictional insects Category:Fictional superorganisms Category:1977 introductions